Wednesday, October 23, 2013

How To Be a Good Wife - Emma Chapman

I get all excited when I 'discover' an author and I can't wait to share my find with other readers. How To Be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman is one of those discoveries.

Marta Bjornstad has been married to her husband Hector for twenty five years. She lives a defined life, keeping house for her school teacher husband. She cleans, cooks and makes sure everything is 'just right' for Hector. Her mother-in-law Matilda thoughtfully gave her the book "How To Be a Good Wife" as a wedding gift. It's chock full of wonderful advice....

"Your husband belongs in the outside world. The house is your domain and your responsibility." "Let your husband take care of the correspondence and finances of the household. Make it your job to be pretty and gay."

Marta's son has moved away from home and she is even more lonely and isolated than before. She decides to stop taking the pink pills the doctor has prescribed. Is stopping the pills causing her to lose time? See things out of the corner of her eye? And are the memories that are intruding on her real or imagined?

Absolutely delicious! Chapman does a spectacular job of drawing us into Marta's confusion, uncertainty and fear as she questions all that she believes and everything that she knows. I had my suspicions as Chapman slowly dropped crumbs along the way. The tension builds as Marta inches closer and closer to.....to what? I was compelled to keep turning one more page and another and another....I devoured How To Be a Good Wife in a day. What an excellent, excellent debut. I'll be watching for Chapman's next novel. Read an excerpt of How To Be a Good Wife.

Chapman found inspiration for some of her instructional book's quotes How to Be a Good Wife - "originally published in the 1930s for middle-class British couples, and filled with witty and charming aphorisms on how wives and husbands should treat each other."

Fans of S. J. Watson's Before I Go To Sleep or Alice Laplante's Turn of Mind would enjoy this new author.

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FTC Disclaimer:

Unless otherwise indicated, all of the books I review are either purchased by me or borrowed from the library. When a review copy has been received from an author, publisher or company, it is in exchange for a fair review and has no effect on my opinion of the book. There is no monetary compensation for reviews. All reviews are my own personal reaction to and opinion of the book.